It's August, but that doesn't mean its not sweater season at Ms. Cleaver Creations!
Hot on the heels of the Cormac release, I'm pleased to present, not one, but two new sweaters - Hemingway: Men's and Women's. Or as I call them, Him-ingway and Her-ingway.
This design can be credited to power of the corkboard squares in my studio space. Sometime, a long time ago (before July 2012 at least), I had the idea of trying to design a pattern that used knit and purl stitches to make a plaid fabric. I was pretty happy with the way the swatch turned out, but I never quite figured out what to do with it. So it stayed pinned there on my corkboard for ages.
Then I started playing around with a simple, pieced shawl-collar men's pullover. And thought, hey, that plaid thing just might work! The folks at Twist Collective seemed to agree, so much so that they asked to do a women's version too. I panicked briefly, said yes, and then started looking for my first ever sample knitter.
The main differences between the two are that the women's has waist shaping and is generally shorter in the body, sleeves, and armhole depth, as well as narrower in the shoulders. The men's is straight through the waist (easy to lengthen for the extra-tall fellas) and has a slightly wider collar and ribbing. Both are worked in pieces and seams, with the shawl collar that is picked up and worked after seaming.
The sample yarn used for both sweaters is Valley Yarn's Northhampton, which I really enjoyed knitting (the men's sweater) with. It's just a super solid 100% wool yarn. I just kep thinking, yeah - this is wool. Its not too itchy, but it's not so soft that you think it won't hold up in a few years and it comes in some really pretty heathered shades.
If you knit this one up, I'd recommend choosing a size with 2+ inches of positive ease for the best fit. In the photos above the women's has about 4"/10 cm of positive ease and the men's has 2.5"/6 cm positive ease. Not sure what I mean when I'm talking about ease? Check back later this week for a post all about it!
Hemingway is now available for sale through Twist Collective. You can buy each pattern individually for $7.00 USD or get both for $10.00. You can also find the pattern on Ravelry.
All modeled photos courtesy of Twist Collective/Crissy Jarvis.
